Jonas Wood: Homage to Matisse

On May 18, Jonas Wood’s (b.1977) painting Red Pot With White Blouse, 2018  sold for $3,690,000 at Sotheby’s. Like much of Wood’s work, the painting includes a nod to the pottery done by his wife, Shio Kusaka, and to Henri Matisse, in whose works Wood finds inspiration.

 

Over the last decade, Wood’s images of his everyday life have gained him a large following. His carefully placed images and his use of bold colors make his work vibrant and fascinating.

 

At Surovek Gallery, we have works by Wood that showcase his fastidious use of composition and his mastery at fine art printmaking. Matisse Pot has all the elements that Wood is known for. Snoopy Pot is a beautiful work with more than a hint of playfulness.

 

Wood currently has a show at the Karma gallery in New York, consisting of 100 works on paper that he has done over the last twenty years. Jonas Wood: Drawings 2003-2023 will be on exhibit through August 18, 2023.

 

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 The works of Matisse (1869-1954) are featured at the Vatican, where an entire room is dedicated to his work alone. On June 23, the Vatican Museums celebrated the 50th anniversary of its Modern and Contemporary Art collection.

 

The collection was inaugurated in 1973 by Pope Paul Vl. The original collection consisted of about 1,000 works. Today there are about 9,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, fine art prints, installations and more. The artists represented in the contemporary collection include such greats asVan Gogh, Bacon, Chagall, Carrà, de Chirico, Manzù, Capogrossi, Fontana, Burri and Matisse.

 

Here's a look at the inauguration of the Matisse Room:

 

The works in the Matisse Room were donated by the artist’s son, Pierre Matisse (1900-1989), who owned the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York and was influential in bringing Modern Art to America.

 

The works at the Vatican are designs that Matisse created in 1948, in preparation for the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence. The project was a collaboration between Matisse and Sister Jacques-Marie. Before she became Sister Jacques-Marie, she was Monique Bourgeois, a nurse, and occasional model, for Matisse after his surgery for abdominal cancer in 1941.

Bourgeois entered a convent in Vence in 1943. Matisse bought a house not far from the convent. When a chapel was planned for the convent grounds, she asked Matisse if he would help with design. Matisse began to work on the design in 1947, at age 77. He spent more than four years designing stained-glass windows, murals, ceramics, furnishings and even vestments for the priests as well as the architecture of the chapel itself. Many of the designs were done in the cut-out style that Matisse had been doing after complications from his surgery left him wheelchair bound. Matisse had been baptized a Catholic, but had not practiced the religion for many years.

 

 

Sister Jacques-Marie wrote about their collaboration in her 1992 book Henri Matisse: La Chapelle de Vence. Their friendship was also recorded in the documentary A Model for Matisse.

 

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July 6, 2023